Robyn Joins Kindness on Single “Cry Everything”

“Cry Everything” is Adam Bainbridge’s first release as Kindness since their 2014 album, Otherness. For an artist as devoted to collaborations as Bainbridge, this apparent absence can be misleading. In the time since Otherness, they have contributed to Solange’s A Seat at the Table, as well as Blood Orange’s Freetown Sound and Negro Swan. This new track is co-written by Robyn, with whom they worked on their own single “Who Do You Love?” and her song, “Send to Robin Immediately,” from 2018’s Honey. Their growing catalogue of work together brings out the best qualities in each artist, encouraging the other’s vulnerability while invigorating their sound. This is apparent in the marriage of the song’s serious-leaning lyrics, which Bainbridge describes as “a message of tenderness and understanding to a former self,” and the steady groove of its house beat. A sample from Todd Rundgren’s “Pretending to Care” bolsters the track, adding a poignant fullness that unfurls as it progresses. The result is stirring and cathartic. It feels like release, but of a heaviness one isn’t fully aware of until hearing the song.